Susie Orbach

Before heroin chic, before #thinspo and #fitspo, before Oprah Winfrey wheeled a wagon full of fat out to a live studio audience and before the Paleo diet craze, Susie Orbach wrote Fat is a Feminist Issue. 

A lot has changed since that bestselling feminist classic was published back in 1978. For one thing, a lot more people – women and men – are a lot larger, both here in Australia and in Orbach’s native UK. But there’s a lot that hasn’t changed, too. Our bodies, and what we choose to put in them, remain an ongoing source of anxiety.

Orbach has continued to cast a critical eye over issues of food, fat and feminism in the years since she authored that iconic text. A practising psychotherapist as well as a writer, her books have also explored related topics including sex and emotional literacy.

Joined by host Kaz Cooke, Orbach talks about psychotherapy, feminism and our love/hate relationship with food.

Editor's note: in this recording, Kaz Cooke states that Oprah Winfrey owns a 50% in WeightWatchers; at publication time, the correct figure is 10%.